GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Didital Things
In the Thread: High Quality Music Server / CD player

Post Subject: If we are Rating, what are we rating?Posted by rowuk on: 8/2/2016

Amir,you have now posted twice that "proper" USB is better than SPDIF. The problem is that it isn't, unless someone makes up rules to define their own sense of better. The problem here is that they have not defined anything that is better. Both methods have capability to exactly reproduce Redbook and hi res formats. So how to define better? One less device in the playback chain? Artificial declaration of jitter to be the root evil of all digital playback?

I tell my trumpet students not to "throw up" on the music stands during lessons. That means playing with no brain or context - impulsively without any sense of aestethics. Similarly, throwing up a magazine article without context to me is "throwing up".

Tell me what you think. You have had quite a bit of experience with all sorts of equipment. Can you separate "better" from sounds better? Do you have other experiences?

I have repeatedly done DAC shootouts - even during recording sessions and have to say that many times the buffer stage on the output of the DAC made a bigger difference than picking the SPDIF, USB or Firewire interfaces. For the shootouts, I use recordings (symphony orchestra) that I have made myself with a (very high quality) stereo pair of microphones (AB, MS, DECCA Tree, ORTF). No EQ, no limiting or compression. I have never been able to attribute the "problems" that I have heard to any interface. Maybe my ears are simply not good enough, but if that is so, I am very happy because then the interface is one problem that I do not have. Now, the "sound" of the DAC is another story altogether.

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